Girl power is making a comeback in the form of Olympic weightlifting. The sport is going from strength to strength with one Cambridge personal trainer reporting a huge increase in females seeking it out. Reporter ELEANOR DICKINSON gives it a go. . .

When you have the upper body strength equivalent to a kitten, weightlifting is not generally the first sport you veer towards.

Plus, my initial preconceptions of weightlifting were not exactly promising – images of ripped, hulking figures and contorted expressions of pain were unfortunately the first things that sprang to mind.

But, arriving in the gym at Nuffield Health Centre to give this a go myself, I found myself suddenly surrounded by women with terrifyingly svelte figures who actually looked like they were enjoying themselves.

“It is really good for fat burning,” explained Thalia, a regular power lifter. “It is much more efficient than running and so much of it is about technique rather than just strength.”

With that food for thought, the session’s leader Rob Elton invited me to take to the mat. Rob who runs personal training company Point Blank Fitness said the number of women asking for Olympic weightlifting personal training, as opposed to the more usual cardio based exercises, has doubled in the last year.

Olympic weightlifting, also called Olympic-style weightlifting, or weightlifting, is an athletic discipline in the modern Olympic programme in which participants attempt a maximum-weight single lift of a barbell loaded with weight plates.

He said: “It’s great that more women are realising the benefits of lifting weights. Many worry that lifting heavy things will make them look like a body builder, but this is a misconception. Most of my clients drop a dress size in a matter of weeks, with a hell of a lot less effort that they were putting in before.”

Given that I am a novice to this – and a puny one at that – I started with just a bar without weights and was shown the basic clean and jerk technique, one of two Olympic categories.

This involves bringing the bar to the hips, and then in one clean movement, hoisting it to your shoulders, before raising it above your head.

Convinced I am going to hit myself in the face with this, I somewhat hesitantly managed to get the bar just under my chin, before staggering back like a colt on an ice rink.

“You need to make the movement quicker and more fluid. It’s ok, you won’t hit yourself,” Rob reassured me.

He added: “This is what makes Olympic weightlifting different to just regular power lifting – it is as much about getting the technique right as strength.”

Nevertheless, the women who attend Rob’s training sessions are clearly here for a bit more than Pilates-style breathing exercises.

Each week, the aim is to increase the weight, even just by a kilo, so the women are always motivated to try and improve their personal best.

So at least next time, if I manage to move on from a pole to a weight, I can consider that good progress made.

For more information on weight-lifting classes contact www.pointblankfitness.co.uk or call 07957 603191.

Useful information on weightlifting can also be found at www.teamgb.com/summer-sports/weightlifting